


Suicide Protocol

by vodka_and_some_sass



Category: The Night Manager (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gun Violence, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:07:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29880198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodka_and_some_sass/pseuds/vodka_and_some_sass
Summary: Tara is working on a deep cover operation when someone in her organisation makes a stupid mistake that leads to a domino chain of events, resulting in her organisation wanting her dead, as well as the organisation she was in deep cover in. Wounded and struggling to fight for her life, she does not expect help, when it comes from someone she least expects it, her handler’s contact, Jonathan Pine.
Relationships: Jonathan Pine/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	Suicide Protocol

There was a thick, almost tangible tension in the air as Pine watched the agent in front of him rummage through the black duffels that were on the table. Her small hands, covered in gloves, were deft as she used a cleaner and rag to wipe down any prints that might have been left on the weapons in the bags. He could not help but notice how, though the weapons seemed large in her hands, she handled them with the grace and ease of a soldier. Each pistol underwent the same inspection; a check of the barrel, the magazine, the weight and balance test, then a wipe down before it was placed on the table.

Jonathan Pine had not heard of Tara Paul until two weeks ago, when his friend and informant in the Directorate of Military Intelligence in Dublin called him and told him that there was an agent who had broken into the ranks of the Mag Uidhir Syndicate. If that had not been enough to pique Pine’s interest, for the Mag Uidhir were a family syndicate that practically controlled the criminal activity throughout the United Kingdom, and while he had never tried, Pine had heard about how difficult it was to get in, his informant then told him that the agent in question was a woman. So when his old friend, Frederick Cahill asked him to meet Tara Paul so she could ask Pine a few questions about an associate of the Mag Uidhir, he did not need much persuasion. 

Yet, when he stepped into the DMI safehouse, he could not help feel a pinch of disappointment. He had expected someone like his Jed. Well, not his Jed. Not anymore, but someone like her. Someone tall, with an almost feline grace and distracting beauty. No, Tara Paul was definitely not what he was expecting. She was short, small even, barely reaching his chin. Her pixie cropped brown hair was pushed away from her face messily, and her russet eyes were warm and kind, with none of the iciness that was a part of this job. At first glance, she seemed to be simply stocky, but Jonathan’s trained eyes spotted the lean muscles hiding under the cocoa skin. There was a bruise on her shoulder, visible under the strap of the racerback she was wearing, and if it hurt her, she showed no indication of it. She hadn’t spoken much, apart from a quick greeting before she had begun her inspection of the bags, and she had not let on any hint of surprise or apprehension when she found that her agent had come with another person. Finally, she put down the last gun, rolled her shoulders back, and looked up at him.

Tara had recognised the man that Agent Cahill had brought with him to the safehouse. She had stood behind one of the garbage bins and watched as they entered the house and waited. She made them wait. At around the half hour mark, Jonathan Pine stepped out with a cigarette. He went back in ten minutes later. Another ten minutes after that, Tara went into the house. She knew her silence would not bother Fred. He had worked with her long enough to know that she would speak when she was ready. He had made himself comfortable on one of the dusty sofas and seemed to be asleep, or dozing, but she knew better. Jonathan Pine leaned against the door opposite the table she was working at. While she examined the guns, Tara also took the opportunity to study him. Tall and lean, but undoubtedly muscular. The green henley he was wearing did not cling to him, but was fitted enough to show her evidence that Pine did at least the bare minimum to remain fit. She knew that those piercing icy blue eyes were studying her in return, even if the slightly tanned face gave nothing away. And under the closely cropped blond hair, she could almost hear the cogs and wheels turning in his head.

Before getting involved with the Mag Uidhir case, while Tara was still working a desk job at the McKee Barracks, she had been following Richard Roper’s case. It wasn’t very hard to do. After all, Angela Burr had asked her to dig up Jonathan’s past when he had first contacted her from Zermatt. And then of course, he had surprised them all with how efficient he had been while undercover, even though Tara had been quite disdainful about the fact that he had gotten involved with Roper’s woman, if she could be called that. But after the downfall of Richard Roper, Jonathan Pine had disappeared, He was removed from Angela’s files and had probably changed his name, for after completing the necessary protocols following an undercover case, he could not be tracked. Or so she had thought, till her handler showed up with him at their safehouse. 

It was Jonathan who broke the silence. “Fredrick told me you needed intel on someone.”

“Did Freddy tell you who it was?” 

“No. Just that he knew I would be able to help.”

Tara turned to look at Fred quizzically, and he opened a lazy eye. “I figured if he was going to punch someone, it ought to be you when you deliver the news.”

That made both Tara and Jonathan bristle. “Who is it?” Grit out Jonathan.

Tara took out a photograph and gave it to Pine. “I know her as Lisa Raydon.” 

Fred chuckled. “Jonathan knew her as ‘darling’.” 

Pine tossed the picture on the table as if it burned him. “Annalise Montford. That is her name. What do you need to know about her?”

Pine’s reaction made Tara curious, and she figured out that she would find out soon enough why his reaction was as though he was seeing a ghost. “Everything.”

And Pine told her everything. Things Tara knew and things she didn’t. He held no information back, right down to the fact that he had been in love with her by the end of their schooling in Duke of York’s Royal Military School, but she had been popular enough to string not just him, but a few of his peers along as well, so she could have a good time. After he finished relaying as much information as he could, Fredrick sat up and looked at Pine. 

“I need you to help me trace her whereabouts and happenings from after she went AWOL from the army. She is attached to one of the top snakes at Mag Uidhir and we need to know what she is doing before Tara can go in too deep.”

Jonathan simply nodded before turning to Tara. “How long before you need to know?”

Tara bit her lip for a moment before answering. “Not very long. I take the guns to McCairn’s boys today. The check will be completed by the end of this week, if not sooner, and as soon as it is, if all goes well, I will be interacting with members of the inner circle by next week. So I need it by this week, if not sooner than that.”

Jonathan simply pressed his lips together before nodding once. And with that, Tara knew that her end of this business was concluded for now. Hauling her bags out of the door into the rickety sedan she had parked a few houses down, she could not help but feel slightly impressed that her handler’s contact was none other than Jonathan Pine. 

Tara drove aimlessly around the suburbs of Dublin for a few hours, stopping at a pub for some supper before finally driving up to Enniskerry. On the outskirts of the village was a garage, and she was greeted with cold scepticism by the young lad of about twenty when she told him to tell Frank that she wanted her tires changed. When he returned, scepticism had morphed into respect as he gestured her through to the back of the garage, not following her. Only Frank’s most important clients got to take their car around to the back, and very few of those people ever came around to Enniskerry. Most of them used the more sophisticated, upscale garage in Dublin’s city centre. As Tara drove the ’shit coloured buggy’ to the back, she could feel the older, more experienced garage workers size her up. They knew who went to the back. They knew why. She hauled herself out of the driver’s seat and popped the trunk open as two men began to work on her tires and a third came and stood silently as she lifted the duffels out of the car and placed them on the ground. 

“Where’s boss?” Gone was the clear enunciation and polished Cambridge accent, replaced by a heavy Irish brogue that slipped past her lips fluently.

“Gone to Cork. He said he’d find you when he’s back.” Tara knew she had no choice but to leave without the bags. She knew these were ways that the crime groups rattled people who wanted an in, which is why, on the outside, anyone who looked at Tara would see nonchalance in her shrug as she leaned against the car, waiting for her tires to get changed so she could drive back to the dilapidated single room studio flat on the second storey of a rundown brick building in the more impoverished area of Dublin, where she would wait for Frank or one of his goons to find her. 


End file.
